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Part 2, Chapter 6: Purpose
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Invention of Hugo Cabret, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Magic, Cinema, and Imagination
Friendship, Honesty, and Vulnerability
Meaning and Purpose
Hardship and Maturity
Summary
Analysis
Hugo and Isabelle make enough money at the toy store to buy medicine for Georges. However, in the meantime, the clocks are starting to function poorly, and Hugo knows it is only a matter of time before he is caught. To make matters worse, he finds a note from the Station Inspector asking to meet with Claude. That night, Hugo has a nightmare about a train accident that happened in the station before he was born. He wakes up just as the train is about to hit him.
As the clocks tend toward disorder, so does Hugo’s life. He has more going on than he can handle, and he knows that there will be a breaking point soon. The train accident in his dream represents the catastrophic results that could come from his recent behavior, especially if no one fixes the clocks.
Themes
The following day, Hugo goes to Georges’s apartment where he meets Monsieur Tabard and Etienne. Isabelle lets them all inside and asks them to wait a moment so she can tell Jeanne why they came. Monsieur Tabard and Etienne didn’t realize that the children didn’t tell Georges or Jeanne about the purpose for their visit and do their best to be polite. At first, Jeanne tries to turn them away; she is apologetic, but she desperately wants to protect Georges. However, Jeanne changes her mind after Monsieur Tabard tells her a story about meeting Georges when he was a child. As a boy, Monsieur Tabard visited one of Georges’s movie sets and Georges told him to look around to see where dreams come from. The memory made a significant impact of Monsieur Tabard and inspired him to get involved in the film industry.
Here, Monsieur Tabard repeats the sentiment stated earlier about the relationship between movies and dreams. Indeed, the images that Georges’s movies contain regularly occupy Hugo’s dreams, just as they did for his father. Movies provide viewers with images they would never see in real life and stimulate the imagination. Particularly in the early 20th century, movies were a revolutionary medium that fundamentally changed people’s perception of reality. Evidently, Monsieur Tabard is one such person, and he does his best to emphasize just how important Georges’s work is to the way he sees the world.
Themes
Monsieur Tabard also tells Jeanne that he brought along a projector and one of Georges’s films. Ultimately, Jeanne lets them come inside and put on the film. Jeanne thinks Georges is still in the bedroom where he cannot see what is happening, but at the sound of the film projector, Georges comes out into the hallway and watches the movie. The film is A Trip to the Moon—the same film Hugo’s father saw when he was a boy. Georges cries while watching the film and asks if he can have the projector when it is over. Monsieur Tabard gives Georges the projector, and Georges takes it in his room and locks the door.
This scene is a culmination of the book’s many mysteries, as all of the main characters get to see one of Georges’s film—the same film Hugo’s father saw as a child. However, at the end of this chapter, Georges’s relationship to his former work is unclear. What he sees affects him emotionally, but there is no guarantee how he will react behind a locked door.
Themes
